


Tricks Stir

by Numina



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bathing/Washing, Boys Kissing, Brother/Brother Incest, Exhibitionism, Fluid Sexuality, Gay Sex, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Oral Sex, Sexual Fantasy, Sexuality as dominance, Spit As Lube
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 06:07:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13024866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Numina/pseuds/Numina
Summary: The new Sorcerer Supreme is tasked by Thor and The Avengers with keeping another Asgardian securely contained for a little while. One that really, really doesn't like being locked up.(Christmas Present for a Fan-tastic Friend.)





	1. Gone Texas

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know Marvel canon terribly well, and I have even less authority to write on most of the other stuff going on in this one. I mostly made a joke about how Dr. Strange and Loki share about eight seconds of screen-time in Thor: Ragnarok and how that really ought to launch a thousand 'ships...and one of my oldest and best friends who makes a plum pudding that could make you cry promptly added that fic to her Christmas wish list. So six days later, here we are. :)
> 
> A million apologies to Stan Lee, Taika Waititi, and Messires Cumberbatch, Hiddleston, Downey Jr, Hemsworth, et al. as well as gay/bi men and genderfluid folk everywhere. Thank you for being awesome. Whatever sex you're having wherever you are, I hope it's safe and sane and exactly what you want.

“This is a bad idea,” Tex drawled for the sixth time that afternoon.

Stephen gestured broadly, struggling, laying seams of sparking text scalpel-deep into the marble floor “Your opinion...has been noted.”

Tex pointed with the damp end of the toothpick he’d been chewing, his other hand hanging idle at his belt, “Your conjugation of Ko’ok’baath is wrong. It’s an -itha, not an -utu.”

The Sorcerer Supreme sagged, dripping perspiration and crumbling dignity, wishing that the task at hand were only brain surgery, “You could help.”

“I am. I’m telling you where you’re wrong. That’s the best thing one friend can do for another.”

“Oh so we’re friends now.”

“Fuck no, but I’ll happily charge you extra for providing you such luxuriant VIP frills this visit.”

Stephen snorted, wiping out two lines of grueling work with a gesture, “I’ll pay you for an extra hour, anyway. I need a break.”

Tex swept a wayward black hair from his black eyes, securing it by repositioning his stetson, scowling, “No can do, Doc. I don’t have an extra hour to sell you. I gotta get back. You didn’t say it would take this long.”

The Sorcerer Supreme slumped into a chair, materializing a glass of water into his scarred hand, “I didn’t realize it would. I’m a quick study but I'm out of time. One extra hour, Arcana, I’m begging you. I’ll pay you double. I promise, what I’m doing here...I’ll be saving you months of work.” He tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice. Tex was being a lot more neighborly that several of the old-guard sorcerers who made it clear, in small passive-aggressive ways, that they saw Stephen's ascension as a kind of presumptuous line-cutting, and his proximity to the Ancient One's death as convenient. And he did desperately need the help, and couldn't really risk the good will defending his petty pride, but he was tired and in a hurry and had never been great at letting his intelligence be questioned. Tex had a peculiar way of calling him "Doc" that sounded at once fondly familiar and like a shorthand for "you jumped-up little shit."

Tex paced, bootheels cracking smartly on the suite’s polished stone floor, “It’s an important day for the Zacatecas sanctum. Two hours of your time next week in exchange for one hour of mine today is just not…”

“I mean double for the whole contract. Just stay until I get this binding done,” He pounded the water down his throat, trying to center himself but feeling the white hairs at his temples conspiring to annex more of his scalp.

Tex narrowed his eyes, “Six days. Yer puttin' me on.”

Stephen leaned his elbows on his knees, refilling his glass with a thought, “I'd never lie to a fellow sorcerer. And breaking a contract with you would be…”

Tex smirked, his idle hand meandering to a shining six-shooter at his belt, “Fatally inadvisable?”

“I was going to say ‘tacky’. 'In very poor taste.'”

Tex sighed ruefully, sitting heavily in the opposite armchair, “Never stopped you people before. But all right,” his register dropped and his diction became mystically significant, “I round-out our time here today, finish out this idiot scheme of yours, you help complete the new sanctum all next week. Monday to Saturday.”

“Tuesday to Sunday. I’ll need four days to make sure my…” he eyed the woefully incomplete wards, “...guest is properly secure. And comfortable, of course. Wong would skin me if I left him to handle this without adequate assurances.”

Tex shook his head, intoning again, “He'd be right to do it. It’s a bad idea.”

Stephen sighed, “Really? Why didn’t you say so before?” he drained his glass again,  “So do we have a deal, cowboy?”

Tex nodded, “I, Tlayolotl Arriola Anderson, whose Name is Tex Arcana, fourth in the Supremacy and warden of the sheltered languages, accept your promise to dedicate eight hours of every day from Tuesday Next until…” he droned on for a good paragraph, specifying times, strictures, and tasks in magical legalese.

“And I, Stephen Vincent Strange, whose Name is Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme, warden of the Mystica Mundi and all the material worlds of our universe, give you my promise and accept your terms,” he sat back, dropping into less binding speech, “I don’t suppose you’d do the writing for me for a quart of my blood or something. You could get a lot of ritual use out of that.”

Tex shook his head, lapsing back to his namesake drawl, “I wouldn’t spit on this idea for your entire skinny carcass.”

Steven groaned, “He’s just a god. A minor god. An orphan god. From a pantheon so religiously defunct on this world they’re practically aliens.”

“Which makes going to all this trouble just to do a favor for another god from that same defunct pantheon especially stupid.”

“If that’s all I was doing it would be. But I’m also doing it for Tony Stark and the Avengers, which should mean a lot to my role in defending the world from mystical threats. I need more allies with goals similar to mine,” he gave Tex a pointed look, “I can’t always trust my fellow sorcerers to value the material world or the integrity of life on it above their own ambitions. I need allies with a strong inclination towards concrete altruism, and I mean to make some.”

Tex snorted, “The same altruists who completely lost their shit over government oversight after levelling half of Manhattan, instigated by the menace you’re inviting for tea, by the way. And who then levelled a huge chunk of a foreign power for good measure.”

“Which is why they need an alliance with me, as well. If I can earn their trust, I can improve their tactics, then I don’t have to work as hard mitigating their nonsense. And if I can get a better sense of the trickster menace in the process, so much the better” he smiled wryly, disappearing his water glass and cracking his stiff knuckles, “But I suppose it’s too late. A Texan is lecturing me about the moral authority of government oversight. Must be the end of the world.”

“I’m lecturing you about the importance of having the safety on when you’re dealing with weapons.”

“While you swan around my house carrying a pair of single-action six-shooters. I really wish you would leave those on the mantle in the hall.”

“They're magic, Doc, don’t be cute. Common sense is the only safety a sorcerer needs, and yet you’re walking around without it.”

“Then help me.”

“I’m trying.”

“No, I mean...just write out the phrases I need. I’ll still inscribe them and do everything else you want, I just can’t do another dozen re-writes for this last ward.”

Tex shook his head, “Fuck no, Doc. The sheltered languages are what they are for a reason. You learn ‘em or you don’t use ‘em. Just writing your binds out for you would put my mark on this idiocy as sure as casting ‘em myself. No thank you.”

“Proactive risk is part of this job. You taught me that when we met.”

“And provoking a trickster is suicide, as you’re gonna learn right shortly. Why do you think the Asgardians can never hold him?”

The sorcerer supreme rolled his eyes, wiping his pale brow and pushing up from his chair, “Because they’re his family. Deep down they know they can’t cage him without diminishing themselves. Whether they know it or not, their pride wants him to escape, to be a suitable threat. I don’t. And besides, we’re sorcerers, Tex. We provoke the hell out of demons and named powers a hundred times more dangerous than the horned clown every day.”

“Yeah, because those powers got short memories and predictable intentions. They depend on the rules for their power, and the moment we’re out of their sight we’re beneath their notice. Tricksters...their shit gets out of hand faster than greased geese, they take everything personally, and they never forget. They’re so low in the celestial pecking-order they’re practically human, which makes them hard to predict and harder to ignore, and when they’ve got your attention, they’ve got you. You’d be better off poking a grizzly bear with a short stick than putting a trickster up for the night, let alone locking one up and pissing it off where you can hear it talk.”

“It’s only going to be for a month,” he gestured around the tastefully opulent suite, “and I’m hardly lashing him to a rock and dripping poison in his eyes.”

Tex gave him a baleful look, “No way, Doc. My granny didn’t name no fools. If you’re caging or conning a trickster, I don’t give a fuck which one or how small or how nice you mean to be about it. They’re the kind of thing you can’t safely turn your back on, but you also can’t safely look directly at,” he shook his head, weary of repeating himself, “I’ll keep you from killin’ yourself, and believe me I’m already tryin’, but I ain’t touching these wards. This is your bed yer makin'.”

Stephen Strange nodded wearily and raised his scarred, shaking hands for his fifteenth pass at the room’s thirteenth and final binding. By the time he finally finished and showed Tex to the trans-dimensional door, he was so magically exhausted he’d have been unable to summon his guest if it had required anything more mystical than a quick text to Tony.

_It’s ready. Send him over._

_What’s the password?_

_“Excelsior.”_

_Thunderball will be there in five._

He deleted the texts and left his phone outside the room as he passed the doors, cursing how the typing had set his hands shaking again. For the hundredth time that day, he imagined he could feel each calloused spiral fracture in the long bones and the heft of each titanium pin against his stuttering nerves. He curled his fists together behind his back, dismissing them in favor of giving the room a final appraisal.

He’d tried to think of every comfort and dignity he could safely provide. The eastern guest suite was a cube, thirty feet long, wide, and high. The left wall was high windows and a narrow balcony overlooking the streets of Greenwich Village from four stories up. The corner furthest from the windows and door was screened to concealed a claw-footed tub and a well-provisioned toileting area. Close by stood a curtained mahogany bed, modest dressing table, and a long cedar chest with a variety of linens. In the far corner by the windows, a sturdy desk and cushioned chair complemented a bookshelf and lamp. A mini bar by the door was stocked with a variety of refreshments and paired with a low counter cabinet and cafe set. In the center of the room was a scrolled chaise lounge with a low end-table. Aside from the interlocking rings of esoterica binding the room against damage, curses, invasion, or escape, it was much like any other impromptu guest suite in a high-end townhouse.

Doubtless the accommodations would stale over the course of a month, and doubtless the Asgardian would seek slow, murderous vengeance on general principle no matter how richly or hospitably his captivity was framed, but the alternative would have been to lock him in a null zone for a month or neutralize him in a conundrum, and that seemed needlessly cruel. It was clear from their negotiations that Thor still cared for his brother, or at least for the dignity of Asgardians as a general rule, and it had seemed worthwhile to cater to that expectation. He’d been meaning to put some serious wards on the sanctum's guest suite for some time, after all, and it felt wise to spare revealing his more esoteric options in case he ever needed to contain the temperamental thunder-god or any of his multi-talented allies.

As if summoned by thought, the handsome hammer-spinning man-slab landed on the outer balcony with an impressive thud, a lanky flop of green suiting thrown across his shoulders like a stole. Stephen admitted them with silent permissions, and the massive Asgardian lay his brother on the chaise before crossing to exchanging pleasantries, clasping Stephen by the wrist and giving him a hearty slap on the shoulder. He leaned in, saying quietly “He’s just drunk. Should sleep ‘till the morrow and wake hungry. He likes four or five meals a day. It’s not possible for us to die of hunger, though he'll moan as if it's likely. He prefers his wine red and his meat cooked, but he’s not as picky as all that,” he clapped the sorcerer’s shoulder again, having not yet released his wrist, giving both an affirming shake, “I thank you for doing this.”

Stephen masked his bemusement at the warrior’s sappy earnestness, nodding like a sitter reassuring a young parent, “Glad I can help.”

Thor beamed, carelessly radiating the heady warmth, charm, and general handsomeness common to minor warrior-gods, “He’s been much better lately, but Tony and Vision don’t trust him to be running around free for what’s coming next, and frankly I agree with them. He can’t always help himself,” he glanced at his brother with a rippling mix of youthful fondness and old sorrow.

Stephen peered doubtfully past the massive armored shoulders to the lithe figure at rest, noting how the small crimp of the lips seemed to indicate, even in unconsciousness, that Loki was always capable of helping himself. He nodded a bedside reassurance, “Better go. The less he knows about how he got here the better.”

Thor relaxed visibly, “Thank you, my friend,” and departed matter-of-factly in the same extraordinary way he’d arrived.

Doctor Strange snorted, smiling lightly. Friend. He decided to make a cursory intake inspection of his guest, to establish a baseline in case anything went wrong. Thor’s own charismatic aura reminded him to brace up for the aesthetic undertow involved in dealing with theo-sapiens. There was no ward for it, it wasn’t even magical, just an innate radiant quality of their enhanced Asgardian physiology, as far as he could tell. As a sorcerer he was marginally more aware of it, and possibly more susceptible, but it wasn’t a crippling liability. It undeniably held his interest but it couldn’t override his rational best-interests.

Loki’s aura wasn’t nearly as radiantly overt as his brother’s. His was more like the smell of snow and hearthfire on the air, the page of a book visible over someone else’s shoulder, passively insisting itself, remotely conspiratorial. It wasn’t until he saw his own trembling hand reaching out to turn a lankness of dark hair away from the sleeping face that Stephen realized he was sitting at the figure’s hip.

He re-directed his reach clinically to the carotid artery, curious about whether he would find anything as clunky as a pulse in the slender porcelain neck. It was there, warm blood leaping under a linen lamina of skin. Of their own accord his fingers slid past his pulse, mapping the defined barrow of the sternocleidomastoid muscle, the subtle jewel-like swelling of the jugulodigastric lymph node, summiting the bony mastoid process behind the ear’s elegantly folded cartilage funnel, all of it textbook human, mundane and marvelous.

His hand lingered behind the dish of the ear as his imagination fixed on the dark drain at its center, visualizing its path down into the elegant spiral tourbillons of the inner ear, the fine hairsprings of the cochlea translating membranous vibrations into chemical scatterplots that the convolutions of the temporal lobe would transmute into meaning, understanding, molding images from the buzzing motion of lips long before the involutions of consciousness could interfere. Somewhere in his mind a song echoed, “Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own, to a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone…” and he realized he was humming softly.

The neck turned, bringing the lips under Stephen’s hovering index finger. The mouth parted, breath warm, peaked tongue darting with an unvoiced interdental fricative, “Brother…”

Stephen withdrew his hand but did not rise, self conscious but strangely un-self-aware, like an actor observing, speaking a role. He put his steady hand onto the fingers at his side, his voice strangely resonant in the caverns of his own spiralling ears, “I’m here.”

That same vulnerable, dreamy whisper, “Where are we?”

He swallowed, whispering in kind, unsure why, “Someplace safe.”

The lips twitched with a serene mischief, the warm fingers tightening, "Oh...good...”

Loki’s long, flawless hand carelessly pulled Stephen’s rebuilt one to his chest before rolling over, tugging. An impulse to move with him, to curl against his back length-to-length, washed over him fleetingly, even suggesting that he ought to undress first. It would be easiest, waking in the dark later, to simply...mistake one another, hard and needful, awakening and awakening over and over in one another’s whispered assurances, nine hundred years old and with no better friend in all the realms…

Stephen shook his head sharply, feeling like a med student after a forty-eight hour shift, his mind having spun off into dizzy hallucinations, campaigning for sleep. He stood, flicking his hand with conviction to conjure a thick comforter with fur trim from the empty air, laying it over the sleeping guest, certain that it suited his dreams. The vengeful god snuggled down like a cat and began to breathe evenly as his host summoned a tall glass of water and a couple of aspirin in a small dish, laying them on the table beside the chaise, along with a fine silver bell that he would hear from anywhere inside the sanctum.

Uncertainty settled on his shoulders as he left, stirring like a cloak as his guest breathed dreamily after him again, “Brother…”


	2. A Bit of Strange

His guest never rang the bell. After morning meditation, e-mail, and the dozen other mundanities attendant to the role of Sorcerer Supreme, he went to the kitchen to rummage. As usual Wong had made coffee, but Wong’s coffee was Wong’s Coffee, and had to be poured into its own carafe before Stephen could start another pot while the sausages browned and the eggs boiled.

Wong called from the second floor library, “How’s the sleepover going?”

“Not sure. I haven’t heard a peep from him all morning. Gonna bring him a peace offering, check if he died.”

“Don’t touch my coffee.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. You want some eggs?”

“Yes. Four. And toast. Today I’m alphabetizing the sanskrit section. I need my strength.”

“Coming right up,” he gestured the toaster into action between squeezing oranges and peeling mangoes.

He made the tray neat and appetizing without investing too much hope in its reception. He hadn’t any expectation that any of the furniture in the suite would still be intact if Loki had realized he’d been caged, but he also hadn’t any expectation that he'd be awake, either. Stephen had simply left the whole day open to deal with any fallout, figurative or otherwise.

He certainly hadn’t expected, as he pushed open the door, to hear leisurely singing echo around the high ceiling from the far side of the room, accompanied by splashing.

“Like a circle in a spiral  
Like a wheel within a wheel  
Never ending or beginning  
On an ever-spinning reel…”

The voice that emanated from behind the privacy screen, along with the scent of steam and lavender oil, was sweet and oaky and unperformed, projected purely for its own enjoyment. Stephen set the tray down on the counter by the door, moving dishes to the small table before lifting his own voice, “If you’re going to be awhile, I hope you don’t mind if I start without you.”

“No, I’ll get out. I’m ravenous,” he rolled the word into a resonant snarl, “but please don’t stand on ceremony in any case.”

“How do you take your coffee?”

“Dark and sweet…” the sentence seemed to linger on an uncompleted simile “...and unpoisoned if you can manage it.”

Stephen projected a put-upon sigh, “If you insist,” and stirred sugar as a loud splash heralded the deus exitus of the tub.

Loki of Asgard had evidently found the plush robe and fluffy slippers in the linen chest, and sauntered to the breakfast table in same, the robe belted low on his hips and lapping open over his chest. He sunned Stephen with an openly contrived pleasantness, not looking at the food at all, “Well, doesn’t this look deee-lish.”

“Please, have a seat, help yourself.”

Loki sat, reaching for the toast, “You brought me a butter knife. Weird way to want to die, but I never refuse an embossed invitation.”

Stephen regarded him coolly, sipping his juice, “Are you willing to conduct yourself as a guest or should I invoke terms of capture and ransom?”

Loki groaned like a wronged teenager, “Noooo, I’ll behave,” he loaded his plate and took a drink from his cup, “Hm. Good coffee. So what do you want me to do for you?”

“Nothing.”

Loki raised an eyebrow, “...to you?”

Stephen shook his head.

He snorted, “A sorcerer that doesn’t want favors is like a whore that doesn’t want money: clearly lying, or getting it somewhere else. You’re not doing this for shits and giggles, just spit it out. I’m fantastically powerful. You got me fair and square. What do you say, three wishes?”

Stephen couldn’t conceal a smirk, “Ok, I wish for you to take a little break from the world for a couple weeks, here, without trying to escape. I wish for you to catch up on your reading, sleep in, enjoy some good food and not be a cosmic pain in the ass for that period of time. I wish for you to forget any sense of vengeance you accrue towards me or my associates during your enforced stay once it’s done.”

Loki swallowed the mouthful he’d been chewing, energetically overloading his fork with the next, “I’ve changed my mind, your wishes suck. Good breakfast though. Handmade, not conjured. I appreciate that,” he drained his glass of fresh-squeezed juice in a gulp, “So I tell you what…”

“No,” Stephen cut him off, “You’re not going to tell me what. Like it or not, those are my terms. Behave in whatever way makes it least intolerable for you, I’ll do my best to provide whatever you need in terms of comfort or entertainment, but you’re staying here until I let you go.”

Loki’s geniality soured near-instantly into open hostility, “How long.”

“No more than six weeks.”

With a single gesture Loki stood and swept the small table over sideways, the massive splattering crash destroying everything but the Doctor’s coffee and a sausage speared his own fork, which he brandished while spitting a froth of eyebrow-singeing oaths at his jailer.

Stephen stood slowly and gestured as Loki raved and circled, the dishes picking themselves off the floor, re-forming and putting themselves away in the cupboard, all traces of the ruined food and its residues vanishing like smoke. As he turned back a flash of magenta light indicated that Loki had tried to strike him and been prevented by the room's protections. Loki howled through clenched teeth and cradled his hand, his eyes brimming with venomous tears.

“Are you done?” the hot-shot in him couldn’t resist a little gloat, “What am I saying, of course you are. That spiral shield spell hurts like a sonofabitch, particularly for the fantastically powerful.”

Loki’s grimace warmed into a genuine smile and his face morphed, becoming squarer, tanned, dark-eyed and appealingly craggy, his shoulders widening and his chest popping with lean muscle, and a bright pink circular scar. A dark goatee sprouted and Tony Stark stood before the Sorcerer Supreme, tucking a small hologram projector into his breast pocket, "Great job, Strange, really top-drawer. The Avengers didn’t know if we could trust you to handle someone as dangerous as the Lokester, but you passed our little initiation test with flying colors. Welcome to the team! Now what say we get some Irish into that coffee?” he clapped an arm around Stephen's shoulders and nibbled at his fork suggestively.

Stephen sighed deeply, “I’m not doing this to join the Avengers, Loki. I just need you out of the way for a little while, and you’re not going to find out why with cheap illusions.”

Tony shifted his weight with his trademark swagger and weaponized puppy-eyes, “I’m not trying to interrogate you, Presto, I’m just trying to figure out your type. Sorcerers are so narcissistic I figured the goatee would be your thing, but your pupils didn’t even dilate. C’mon, you don’t ‘ship this? I’m Tony Stark! I’m pretty sure the pope wants to fuck me. Nothing?” he peered into Stephen’s laconic expression and shook his head, his cadence lapsing a little Loki-ish  “Seriously, I expect he’ll be hurt when I tell him.”

Stephen had no reply and Tony studied him with comical shrewdness, “I bet my being your helpless prisoner is the problem. I expect you’d want him to top you,” Tony Stark snapped his perfectly manicured fingers and the privacy drapes of the four-poster sprang apart like the curtain of a broadway proscenium, revealing two improbably-chiseled naked men in the throes of a strenuous tryst: Stephen Strange, on his elbows and knees, bucking bareback as Tony Stark drilled him intently from behind, both as clearly transported by agonizing ecstasy as renaissance martyrs. With every fifth or sixth grunting writhe, Stephen would rear back, arching hard to keep Tony balls-deep inside him, flashing his own erection to the audience. It was so cartoonishly swollen and purple it barely bobbed as his body absorbed each plunging thrust, and yet the hunger on his face was somehow more sincere by contrast with the satirical knob. Loki was clearly mocking him, but the passions on display were no joke. Stephen watched himself clutch and moan with operatic intensity, urging Tony harder, faster, yes, yes, yes, please oh please yes.

Each time Stephen reared, Tony gave him a few moments before seizing the cock-hungry sorcerer by back of his neck and pressing him down onto all-fours again, rewarding his eagerness with several fierce thrusts that slapped their balls together wetly. While Stephen grovelled in transportations of pleasure, he answered all of Tony's snarled questions with cries of “yes”: Do you like that? Do you need that? Are you getting fucked/reamed/plowed/filled with my huge cock?

The real Stephen Strange refused to blink, certain that Loki would eventually get bored and wrap up his homo-erotic shadow-play, which he did in spectacular fashion.Tony brought one knee up, planting his foot and leaning hard into Stephen’s ass, grunting and rumbling like a blown horse. Stephen reared up, throwing his scarred hands back to clutch at Tony’s rippling shoulders. Instead of forcing him down again, Tony clapped both hands around that painfully rigid indigo boner, working it like the handle of a butter churn to slam the narrow sorcerer to him over and over. As Tony began to erupt molten cum into him with the incongruous sub-sonic roar of a subway train, Stephen’s own tumescent organ shot viscous ropes of vital fluid like a startled sea cucumber. The two men, drenched in sweat, sank together onto the gooey sheets and dissolved like a breaking wave.

Loki’s gleeful grin broke like a wave against the narrow getty of Stephen’s own expression, tumbling into a pout, “Oh come on, nothing?”

“I suppose I’m just relieved you didn’t actually include the pope. Feel better?”

When Loki spoke again, he’d grown a foot taller and narrowed into the willowy, expertly turned-out visage of Pepper Potts, eyeing him lasciviously, “More the cuckolding type?”

Loki's dedication provoked equal parts fascination and outrage, and Stephen thought he might need to call on his own skill with illusions to assure his stone faced indifference. It wasn’t the transparent attempts to shock that were so compelling, but the peculiar warmth underneath. The trickster’s grin wasn’t about ridicule or dominance, but a simmering delight in teasing out secrets and, below that, offering recognition, acceptance.

“Nothing? Hmm…” Pepper shrank and the Ancient One smiled up at him puckishly, “I knew her, you know,” her smooth voice crooned, “Long time ago, of course, when I was younger...and so was she,” her smile expanded into something openly sexual but somehow not out of character for his dear mentor, “She was a real pistol. I could show you what she liked. Or what color her hair was. No?” the Ancient One thickened and darkened and Wong winked at him, “Ah? Ahhhh?”

Stephen smirked, trying to hide his competing flares of mirth and outrage at Loki’s adept button-pushing, the puzzling flashes of sincerity and malice, “Well _now_ you’re just being mean.”

“Oh no,” Master Mordo replied, gazing at him hungrily, “If you’re giving me six weeks, _now_ I’m just getting started.”

Stephen sighed, his massive competitive streak finally getting the better of him, “I’d heard you were something of the seductress. You’ve had five guesses, do I get one?” Knowing he shouldn’t, Doctor Strange called up an illusion of Thor around his own frame, beaming with easy, boyish charm. Mordo melted and Loki re-emerged looking stunned. Stephen opened Thor’s hands in mock surprise, saying in the thunder-god’s voice and his own cadence, “Well whaddaya know. Got it in one. I _am_ good.”

Loki fell back a step, his jaw slacking open wider than his bathrobe, “That isn’t funny.”

Stephen took a step forward and the illusion of Thor followed him, “Sure it is. Unless you don’t want it to be...funny...anymore.”

Loki retreated another step towards the bed, and Strange turned himself invisible, letting the illusion of Thor advance without him and steering from an observational distance, imbuing the deception with resonant properties capable of mimicking solid matter for a little while.

Thor looked  heartbroken, “Don’t you trust me, Loki? Don’t you want to touch me, like you used to? I miss our game...”

Loki’s mouth was dry, his eyes fixed with helpless awe as he tried to find purchase in anger, “How...dare you…”

But as the shadow of his adoptive brother drew close Loki’s posture softened and changed direction, yearning into the large hands that touched him. The armor fell away at his lightest touch, leaving only bare blonde skin dusted with shining blonde hair.

Thor took Loki in his arms and whispered, “I’ve missed this so much, brother. If you're so clever why can’t you ever feel me wanting you?”

Loki moaned, “Oh you bastard,” and clasped Thor’s lips with his own, shrugging the robe off his shoulders until it hung off his hips.

Stephen took a few steps closer as Thor cradled Loki’s cheekbones in his battle-hardened hands, deep and speculative things finding expression in seeking to disarm the compelling god with pleasure. He told himself that this was vengeance, a consonant show of power to clarify that he was not helpless and would not be trifled with, but it felt nothing like that. It felt like surgery, it felt like study, pure and potent and real, reaching into something deep and alive to understand it, steward it, leave his mark in defiance of powers larger than himself. His guest could escape the illusion with hardly a thought, but the action coasted forward as effortlessly as a ouija board, seeming like no one was pushing because everyone was pushing.

Thor slid his hands down Loki’s long waist, pulling him close, nestling his erection in the soft seam of his thigh, “Tell me to stop, Loki. You’re so much stronger than I am, and you know this never ends well.”

Loki slid away, leaning back onto the bed, extending one hand wordlessly, and Thor rushed to close the distance, bearing down on his lithe frame with tender caution, knowing that he was heavier, stronger. Loki drew him down hungrily with the same knowledge and far less care. Thor ravaged him worshipfully, engrossed in clasping and kissing, his mouth stalked its way down the central gully between his abdominals to the thicket where its wary quarry quivered. But instead of pouncing like a hungry lion, Thor’s lips caressed it’s long neck gently, easing it with murmuring touches until it nuzzled tamely against his cheek. Then, embracing Loki’s lower body in his powerful arms, he slid his lips over the top of the trickster’s straining scepter, taking him into his mouth like a seasoned horse-whisperer taking an unbroken yearling between his legs.

Loki seized fistfuls of flaxen hair and gasped, helpless to maneuver under the powerful and knowing ministrations of his rider, whispering, “Never leave me,” though still seeming to do his mindless best to writhe free. Thor ground his tonsils against the straining, marble-hard head of Loki’s cock, never withdrawing, fighting inexhaustibly with his brother’s fickle body and turbulent needs. Rich rivulets of churned saliva slid down his mount’s shaft and between his bucking haunches, and Thor used his large, patient fingers to daub it into the cleft of Loki's rump, rubbing and gently lubricating, pressing the assault on his senses to a second front. Loki screamed with soaring anticipation, half-laughing at himself, and sweat sprouted on Stephen's brow as he upheld the intensity of the illusion, the vividness with which he could sense the slick muscular ring tightening on his construct’s digits, his own agile mind fanning out other possible sensations and arrangements, his body and mind petitioning him, civilly, for further study.

Loki moaned as if he were begging mercy, “Now, now!” and Thor obliged him, keeping Loki’s saddle horn firmly socketed at the back of his mouth as he thrust froth-slick fingers inside and worked them in alternated strokes, stretching slowly. Loki clenched and bucked and pumped hot semen down Thor's throat like sweet mead from a bottomless drinking horn as his own throat loosed a single long, clear note as his brother blew him.

When Loki finally lay like an inebriated ragdoll, Thor edged him further up onto the bed so he could get his knees beneath his thighs, lifting his ankles onto his broad, sweaty shoulders. His voice was husky, “I want...” The thunder-god’s blunt tool strained towards Loki, finding him worthy.

Loki nodded, smiling dopily, “Oh god yes, you moron, fuck me bow-legged until your balls burst.”

With a fractured, reckless groan Thor pressed himself in, and the sudden absurd stretch caused the limber Loki to cough a laugh of delight and disbelief. Heedlessly Thor serviced his cock with his brother’s hot sheath as devoutly as he’d serviced his brother, slow and unrelenting, taking a full and gluttonous glory in every ounce of pressure against every hard inch, Stephen made sure of it. Glazed and transported, Thor sank onto his fists and Loki bent with him, letting him work, the trickster’s eyes glinting with the intimate knowledge that his brother was never more under his control, or safer, than that moment, planted so deep that their heart rates synced. Thor scooped his hands under Loki’s shoulders and pulled him up into his lap. Loki clasped his hands by his ankles around Thor’s neck, and Thor pressed deep with his body and his eyes, grunting and grinding and gasping steadily.

As his peak approached Thor slowed, drawing out his pleasure, his surrender, his victory. Loki brought his legs down, finding purchase on the blankets, helping, nurturing his end, knowing how his brother lost his balance when fully giving-in to his needs, and needed someone there to be clever and strong and love him more than anyone else ever could, someone who could handle the heat and the pressure at the heart of a star.

Resting their glistening foreheads together, Thor’s voice was a welter of pleasure so raw it was almost pain, “Brother...why...why did you stop loving me?”

Loki blinked tears that mingled with his sweat, stroking his brother’s mane and gripping it tight, “I didn’t…I never do...”

Thor nodded, gasping, slowly tipping towards an edge, his proud eyes as helpless as a child’s, “Never leave me again…”

Loki kissed him and leaned back, pulling the avalanche of his brother’s release down on top of himself as the god of thunder rolled and broke atop him, lashing out torrents of cum, over and over, groaning his last like a fading storm and sinking to the bed.

Stephen watched, bracing for what Loki would do but unable to hold the illusion a moment longer, drained. The god of storms dissolved into the air, leaving Loki on his back, panting and pulsing hotly. Loki heaved a weary sigh and vanished into nothingness as well.

There was a distinct crunch of popcorn as Doctor Stephen Strange and Loki Laufeyson dropped their invisibility at the same time, side by side, both still staring at the empty bed where their illusions had trysted like gladiators. Loki glanced over with a massive popcorn-eating grin on his face. “Pretty vivid for a straight guy.”

Stephen shrugged, feeling oddly unflappable, “I thought it was tasteful, at least.”

Loki nodded with satiric seriousness, “Oh, I concur.”

“Just trying to be a good host.”

Loki snorted, “By kidnapping me, locking me up, and trying to fuck me with my own brother’s massive meat-hose? Which, just incidentally, _not_ that big in person, you fucking size-queen. Still, if attempted assault with that blunt instrument’s blunt instrument is your idea of hospitality, I suppose I had better try to behave.”

Stephen shrugged, “That is all I ask.”

Loki shook his head, “Whores and sorcerers. You’re either lying, or you’re working for someone else. Still, you’ve got potential.”

Strange studied Loki’s inscrutable smirk, giving up, “Lunch is at noon, ring if you need anything before then,” he turned to go.

“Stephen wait.”

Stephen turned indulgently, recalling Tex’s warning about turning his back, “What.”

“Fair warning, good guest to good host. You will want something from me, something only I can give you, enough that you’ll sell out whoever’s paying you to hold me. Your kind always do. You should pass that promise on to them, if you’re an honorable man.”

Stephen grimaced, “You really think a lot of your finger-puppet sex shows. Not that I’m an expert, but I don’t think gay porn is all that hard to come by in the internet age.”

“Pun intended?”

Stephen shrugged, feeling reckless, like driving a sports car down an icy road, or a snowball down a mountain, “If I’m honest, it’s a little disappointing.”

“Takes one to not-tango, wallflower.”

“I just mean the gambit. Sex. It’s a little old hat.”

“I like the classics. If you want I could go back to violence.”

He sighed, “I’ve got more exciting alphabetizing to do.”

“You want excitement?”

“I really don’t. I just thought it might be more interesting for both of us if we could relate to each other with a little less showy bullshit.”

“Says the writer, director, and stage-manager of this little drama.”

“To his prima-donna.”

Loki laughed with genuine delight, deep and melodic, “Oh I like you…” he sighed, sobering past neutral calm to active ire, “I hate that.”

“May I go, please? I do work for a living.”

Loki considered him a moment, “Close your eyes, and give me your index finger.”

Stephen thought for a moment, remembering the sleeping god’s lips against the tip of his left index finger, deciding to risk it, extending it to him again and curling the rest into his upturned palm as he closed his eyes.

A cool slim hand closed around his wrist, lifting it slightly, warm breath preceding warm lips. Frissons of inexplicable pleasure and pain chased each other up his arm as Loki’s mouth enfolded him to the third knuckle. The lips tightened, sucking, tongue rolling on all sides until his knees began to feel shaky. The joints, phalanges, and metacarpal of his second digit all burned intensely for a few moments as the warm mouth pulled away again. Loki bent the other three fingers far enough open to spit into Stephen’s palm before curling them back.

“Now you can go.”

Stephen opened his eyes, his hand still hovering. His index finger was smooth and unscarred from the tip to the base of his wrist, like a clean-spot made by spilled bleach, and when he flexed it experimentally it didn’t shake. He opened his other fingers for comparison and found four damp titanium pins loose in his palm.

He sighed and shook his head, “So you give me something you think I want, with the expectation that you can take it away again. I’m at peace with my disability, and familiar with illusory temptation.”

Loki shook his head, “It’s not a trick. It’s real. I can’t even take it away unless you insist.”

“Then I insist.”

Loki shrugged, “which doesn’t mean that I _have_ to take it away. It’s not a threat, it’s a challenge. It will amuse me to see if you can figure out how I did it. Don’t deny me my little entertainments, jailer. Go away now. I’d like a steak for lunch. Rare.”

Stephen Strange walked away, the four pins in his hand as heavy as an accepted gauntlet.

 


	3. Rings Around the Moon

Stephen brought steak for lunch, and finger-foods and tea in the afternoon. Both times Loki completely ignored him, reading intently at the desk still in his bathrobe, but all the food got eaten between check-ins, despite being more than enough for several people. When Stephen brought stew and bread for dinner he found Loki, finally dressed, lying on his back on the floor by the chaise, one leg bent up, arms out cruciform, staring piteously at the ceiling.

“Let me guess,” Stephen began, laying out dishes on the table and counter, “you’re very ill and you need me to take you to the hospital right away.”

Loki snorted churlishly, “Worse. I’m _bored_.”

“Come eat.”

“No.”

Stephen laughed, “Come on. I thought you might like to try some of my favorite cabernet. Goes really well with a robust stew and fresh-baked bread.”

There was a pause, and then a far less convincing but no less petulant, “No.”

Stephen sat and served himself, tearing off a piece of bread, smiling inwardly at how Loki twitched with self-pity at the sound of a perfect crust crackling. He busied himself pouring out two tastings of wine, swirling his own and sighing with earnest pleasure as he let it burn his tongue.

Without a word Loki got up and came to the table, briskly filling his bowl and his glass, tucking in like he hadn’t eaten in months. Halfway through his third glass and second bowl he asked offhand, “How’s the finger?”

Stephen nodded indifferently, “About the same. How are the wards holding up?”

Loki nodded, raising his glass, “About like you’d think. My complements.”

Stephen returned the gesture, “I could add a time charm in the third ward, make things pass a little more quickly here, if it’s really upsetting you.”

Loki shook his head, “No, it’s all the same. Chained to a rock is chained to a rock. It’s always forever.”

Stephen nodded, “I hear that.”

Loki drained his glass, reached for the empty bottle and frowned, “Are you pretending to bond with me?”

Stephen shook his head, turning his hand over and filling it with another bottle of wine, “I’m just agreeing with you. It’s why I didn’t do the time charm in the first place, seemed insulting. I figured you’d want more time to beat my wards and murder me in my sleep. Try the Shiraz.”

Loki made a face, “I don’t like conjured wine. Always has that void-y aftertaste.”

Stephen shook his head, “Just summoned. The cellar here is phenomenal.”

Loki shrugged and held out his glass, resting his head in his other hand, speaking with a bitter sort of wistfulness, “You’ve no idea what it’s like to be bound to a barren rock and tortured indefinitely,” Stephen said nothing in a way that made Loki sit up straight, incredulous, “When were you bound to a barren rock and tortured indefinitely?”

Stephen shrugged, “Fight with Dormammu. In the dark dimension.”

Loki scoffed, “That doesn’t count, there’s no time there.”

“Unless someone brings their own.”

Loki narrowed his eyes, still cuttingly skeptical but with an edge of...outrage, protectiveness, “Who did that to you?”

“I did. I mean, technically I did it to him.”

“How did you keep him from killing you?”

Stephen took a deep breath, trying not to remember, “I didn’t.”

Loki chewed, “Kinky.”

Stephen shrugged, unable to find his flippancy, “He was going to destroy the world. So...yeah...I just bound myself to him and let him...kill me. Until he got bored and was ready to bargain. Like I said, I work for a living.”

“You see? That’s the problem with these grandiose powers, always wanting to destroy the whole world or the whole universe or eat the whole galaxy or suchlike. I only ever wanted to rule. I’ve been a good ruler, when I’ve gotten the chance, once all the necessary shock and awe’s died down. I’ve got no appetite for the suffering of others. I love the world.”

“Maybe don’t try to sell me on that when we’re sitting in New York.”

Loki swallowed and they shared a silence for a while, “Is there any dessert?”

Stephen nodded lightly, letting the previous topic pass, “There’s some black forest cupcakes I got at Magnolia. And I think there’s still some of the trifle Wong made last week. It’s pretty good.”

Loki looked like he was going to take the chance to pout again, but instead just muttered, “Cupcakes.”

“Want some coffee too?”

“Do you have espresso?”

Stephen nodded, finishing his wine, “I’m the Sorcerer Supreme. If it involves caffeine I have it. With sugar?”

“Yes, lots.”

“Coming right up,” Stephen slowly began levitating dirty dishes back onto the tray without getting up from the table.

Loki snapped, “Well?”

“It’ll take a minute. Wong will bring it when it’s ready.”

“Is he listening or something?”

Stephen smiled cryptically, “No.”

Loki nodded appraisingly, “I do have to compliment you on the wards. You guessed right.”

“How so?”

“I speak two of the twelve sheltered languages. You had a one-in-six chance of picking one I could have used against you for the capstone.”

Stephen shrugged, “One in eleven. I kind of figured lost temple-norse was a gimmie.”

Loki smirked, “Two in eleven, lost temple-norse isn’t one of the ones I know.”

“Really?”

“The norns wouldn’t teach it to me. My reputation precedes most of western civilization.”

Stephen scoffed, “I refuse to believe you’ve always been like this.”

Loki rolled his eyes, “Like what.”

Stephen leaned forward, resting his elbows, “Like you are now. Asgardians, Jotuns, you aren’t literally gods. I mean, functionally, yes, on a Newtonian scale any sentient that lives more than a thousand years is basically a god compared to the rest of us. Add in all the magic you’ve systematized until it’s indistinguishable from biology and technology and, sure, you’re possessed of a certain walking-around kind of godhood, but you’re not...I mean...on the Einstein and Hawking scale of reality, you’re not cosmic powers,” he smirked, lacing his fingers behind his head, “I’ve met cosmic powers and you, sir, are-”

“Your point?”

Stephen sighed, “I mean you’re not a static archetype or a natural law or a closed circle. You’ve found a niche in being a devious petty vengeful weasley-”

“YOUR POINT?”

“-and spooling that out indefinitely works for you, apparently, and that’s great. But, come on, you weren’t born like this. There’s no cosmic necessity insisting you take that role, and a cosmic force like the norns wouldn’t care that you’re kind of a power-hungry jerk. I mean, they taught Odin, and you’ve got nothing on that asshole. You’re not the platonic form of being an asshole. I know it’s hard to get out of a rut when you still live with your family but don’t do me the discourtesy of thinking I still believe in fairy tales.”

Loki snarled, slamming a fist down on the table, “I’ll do you the discourtesy of peeling the lids off your eyes before I put your head through the floor you maimed ape!”

Stephen leaned in seriously, “See that’s the thing I can’t figure out. Between the deprived orphan that sincerely wants to belong and the spoiled brat that would happily burn half the world if it meant he could rule the other half, which one is the lie? Or is it both of them?”

Loki sat back, louring a warning through a biting smile, “You really want to stop talking.”

Stephen pressed his carefully prepared provocation like a spell, “All I mean is, if you’re already bored with this one room after one day, how have you gone however-many-thousand years without getting bored of this one act? I’d have to imagine that’s like-”  
  
Loki leaned forward, teeth clenched, “Stop talking.”

“-living your life chained to a rock while a serpent drips poison in your-”

“STOP! TALKING!”

There was a knock at the door and Stephen smiled, getting up, “Ah, good.” Wong gave him a grimly skeptical look as he passed the tray through the door, but Stephen winked him a reassurance. He set the tray on the counter, “I’ll give you a free shot at hitting me in the face if you promise not to throw the dessert on the floor. I know I’m an asshole, too, but Magnolia’s cupcakes are kind of sacred, and Wong doesn’t make his espresso for just anyone.”

There was no sound, and when Stephen turned Loki was at the windows, studying the sky. It was full-dark, and the full moon was just cresting over the rooftops, ringed with a misty rainbow aura. Stephen turned to go, hoping he hadn’t over-played his hand on the first day.

“Stephen.”

He went and stood beside his trapped not-exactly-a-god in silence a long time, then Loki muttered, “It’s a secret. But I’ll tell you.”

Stephen shook his head, “You don’t have to, so why would you? And why would I believe you?”

Loki turned towards him slightly, his eyes still fixed on the moon, “Because it’s better the way I tell it. Because you’re close enough to figuring it out yourself. And if you do, I don’t get to set conditions or make demands. I’ll give you my oath as a guest, and under the sight of the watchers.”

Doctor Strange let his voice drop into the register of a magical agreement, “By those witnesses, name your terms.”

“I Loki Odinson, son of Laufey Jotunking, prince of the fallen Asgard and brother to the rightful king of its people, whose Name is Loki Friggasdottir, Horse-fucker, Lord of Lies, The Burnt Bough, Kinslayer, Slander-bearer, Lock and Key,” he took a deep breath, “etcetera etcetera…do charge you with a secret in its truth and its keeping, as Sorcerer Supreme and by that title, as my host under your roof and by that office; to bind my secret in all its layers behind your lips in magical oath and seal,” he turned his eyes to Strange, his voice losing none of its power of pronouncement, “and if ever you betray me in this, I shall, by right, hunt you until you have never existed.”

Stephen nodded and accepted, giving his oath and Name in the customary way, adding, “with retaliation against myself or my household, now or ever, in breach of the bond of guest under which this oath is made, to be also the breaking of this secret’s seal, by right upon your head and Name.”

Stephen offered his hand and Loki took him by the wrist, clasping one another to the agreement. Loki pulled him close, murmuring, “So be it…” as his mouth rushed to close against Stephen’s, sealing the bargain.

Stephen’s third-eye sprang open and his chakras lit up like an antique carousel that had spun and spun and finally hit a jackpot function it didn’t even know it had.

And the Sorcerer Supreme passed out cold.


	4. A Half-Forgotten Dream

Stephen slept. Things flashed by, whirling faster than he could see, leaving him feeling sore and feverish behind his eyes. Someone was ranting, raging, sobbing, pleading. Someone else was yelling in a language he didn’t understand, similar voices from different faces, over and over. He tried to summon up his center, regain control, to slow the mental noise around him, but his hands felt heavy and wouldn’t stop shaking, and all he could do was sit and listen to the cacophony that repeated and repeated like a spiral. Finally he heard the rush of water, and felt still, like he’d finally been thrown onto a peaceful tidal pool. He rested, grateful, feeling snug and weightless.

He opened his eyes a sliver and found that he was, specifically, submerged to his chest in warm foamy bathwater, in the guest suite's clawfoot tub. Early morning sunlight sliced cheerily into his tender brain. Loki sat by his side in a chair, reading a book.

He tried to lift his head and groaned.

“I agree. We probably should have stopped before the Shiraz,” Loki crooned sympathetically, turning a page.

“How long have I been in the bath?” he rubbed his fingertips together but they didn’t feel too pruny.

“Not long. It’s just that when you finally seemed to be coming around you threw up on yourself like a peyote-addled lightweight, and I thought the water would help with the smell and the trance and the...confusion. Couldn’t leave you in your soiled clothes, but I didn’t want you having that moment of dread waking up naked in my bed wondering what I’d done to you.”

Stephen massaged his eyes, trying to coax them into opening, “What _did_ you do to me?”

“Nothing. Well, ok, I ate your cupcake. And I may have punched you in the face. But you did say I could. You forgot to specify from which side, so I chose the inside.”

Stephen groaned again, his brain feeling as hollow and spangled as a carnival balloon, “You said you were going to...tell me…” it kept running away from him.

“I did. It’s all in there. Poured out my little heart but you’d already rolled over and gone to sleep.”

Stephen swallowed a grumble, “I’m sorry. Tell me again, slower. And with actual words.”

“It would probably still be too much for you. You were crying in your sleep. I was touched.”

“But there were...women. In the woods.”

“Oh, yeah, that,” Loki pulled his lips back from his teeth, amused and embarrassed, “my jarnvidges, my little stint as a cult leader. In fairness they started it. Spindle-witches, most of them. It’s funny you remember that part. They were some of the first humans I ever bent the rules for.”

“Sorceresses…”

“Once I was done with them, yes. I owed their leader, Angrboda, brought her gifts.”

“I know her name from the stories. She was your first wife.”

Loki made that abashed grin again, “Not...exactly.”

“You had children with her.”

“Technically yes...look, Strange, I left a pretty big wad of baggage in that massive noggin. I probably shouldn’t have, but I was really really drunk and oathy. You probably want to let understanding titrate in at its own pace. Unless you’d rather I suck the poison out of the wound, as it were.”

“No…” Stephen managed to get one foot over the edge of the tub and onto the floor before he began to fall, Loki moving swiftly to catch him.

“Easy does it. Here, I got the bed all cleaned up. Shall I call Wong?”

“No, god no,” he imagined how his housemate would chuckle, and gestured at the door across the room to lock it, just in case, just until the scene wasn’t quite so compromising, “Just...talk to me a little. Things keep...slipping…” his feet sophomorically illustrated his point, but Loki caught him up with hardly an effort.

“Not far, here we go. You’re in the hands of the foremost expert in the nine realms at helping a staggering drunk to bed. And you only weigh about a third what he does when he’s not helping.”

Stephen collapsed in the sheets and Loki scooped his legs in after him, pulling the covers over and tucking him in like a child, sitting at his hip. It didn’t seem the least bit peculiar when the Norse god of mischief put a couple fingertips against the Sorcerer Supreme’s carotid artery, staying there and counting to assure his patient’s pulse wasn’t running the same race as his mind, his thumb just brushing the prominence of his adams apple.

“Why do I trust you now?”

Loki’s smile was warm and incredulous, “Do you really?”

Stephen nodded, the act making him dizzy, “I don’t trust the feeling that I trust you, but it’s there.”

Loki nodded, “I’ll let you sleep. The mind is marvelous for sorting itself out if you give it a chance to dream.”

Stephen caught his hand to his neck, “Please don’t go, stay with me.”

Loki laughed, but not unkindly, “You know I can’t leave. I’ll just be over there reading. You’ll be fine, it’s just a little spiritual acrophobia. I’ll be close by. I won’t let you fall.”

Stephen tightened his grip, “Stay.”

Loki smiled sadly, “Tell me why you’re keeping me here, and I’ll stay.”

“Thor,” Stephen stated, feeling like he couldn’t get the words out fast enough, “He was afraid what you would do if you were along for the mission, and he didn’t know how else to leave you behind.”

Loki blinked and looked down, “I expected as much. When he didn’t even come to bargain for my freedom or check on the conditions. So he still thinks I’m going to betray him.”

Stephen shook his head, “He’s afraid of what you might do to prove yourself. Whether or not he should, he trusts you.”

Loki sighed, “I have perhaps put him through my death a few times too often.”

“How many times?”

Loki rolled his eyes back, counting, “Twenty...eight?”

“That doesn’t seem cruel to you? He’s felt you die every time.”

“For what it’s worth, he’s not the only one. It’s complicated,” he grinned, dispelling the topic as easily as throwing a pebble in a stream, “Two more and I get a free sandwich.”

“Stay.”

“Oh all right.”

Loki climbed under the covers beside him, closing the thick curtains around the bed with a wave.

Stephen pulled him close, brushing their warm, dry lips together lightly.

“Easy, Strange. I’m also the world’s foremost expert in not taking advantage when someone I want has had a little too much.”

“I’m not drunk.”

“You’re not exactly sober either.”

“Don’t make me get oathy.”

Loki sighed, holding up a finger, “All right. If you’re sure. But I’m keeping my clothes on.”

Without another word, Stephen wrapped him in his arms and pulled him down.

They kissed forever, fitting together like a wedge under the revolving door of odd thoughts and images that kept intruding and escaping from Stephen's mind. He anchored his awareness of Loki to the immediate world of touching him, tasting him, instead of spiralling off thousands of years into his past. Lapses into routine set the wheel spinning again and Stephen would have to re-focus on the present with another sensation of tongue or teeth, speed or pressure or location, and Loki accommodated with a dizzying enthusiasm that stayed carefully above the waist. Even when Stephen’s whole body began to rouse to the exercise, his appetites stoked and petitioning unsubtly against Loki’s thigh for release, the trickster held off.

Stephen slid a hand to the pert round of Loki’s buttock, finding no resistance but no reciprocation. He squeezed, pressing their bodies together again, feeling something firm and willing pressing back against his thigh from the trickster’s hip pocket. He ground against it, heedlessly, inhaling the scent of smoke and snow, and Loki pulled his lips away just a little.

“Slow down.”

“You want me.”

“I do. But I don’t do...this. Not when you’re still reeling. Why don’t I give you a minute to handle your situation, and I’ll come right back when you’re done.”

“Stay…” Stephen took Loki’s steady hand in his trembling one and guided his fingers over his rigid prong, sending runnels of mead-sweet electricity skittering around inside his pelvis and up his spine.

Loki bowed his head, for a moment not stopping, groaning softly, relishing the feel of unlimited power over another in the palm of his hand. Then he slowed, and finally stopped, but didn’t let go, squeezing gently, “Take it out of my hand and I’ll stay. I’ll touch you, I’ll show you something you might like, but I can’t...I would lose control. It feels too good.”

Stephen slid his hand around himself underneath Loki’s, freeing it to retreat to his thigh and then, for a moment, to adjusting himself under his own clothes. Loki snuggled down next to Stephen as he lay on his back, nibbling at his ear as Stephen began, slowly, to stroke himself. Stephen felt a hand return to his thigh, massaging gently and dipping down the sensitive seam, sharply peaked fingernails grazing over the ridges of his scrotum. Stephen’s whole body clenched, wanting release right that second despite knowing he needed more build-up, needed to take more time, resisting the urge to beat himself faster, calling on the simplest of his tantric practices to be patient, to enjoy the journey, his hormones rushing like an uninitiated teenager.

Loki’s kisses were relentless, his hand inexorable, cupping and rubbing and gently rolling his sac, gathering it slowly forward and finding the soft spot underneath that Stephen knew, academically, was a shortcut to his prostate. Like every pre-med student with a prostate, Stephen had tried exploring his own as soon as he’d gotten behind a lockable door. He hadn’t really been impressed at the time, deciding fairly quickly that it just wasn’t his thing. Under Loki’s touch, he quickly realized he just hadn’t known how to play it. The trickster-god was a virtuoso.

Loki took a breath between biting Stephen’s earlobe and whispered, “I like to call this ‘opening the fourth eye’.” and he chuckled softly as Stephen writhed, trading the pad of his thumb against the soft fontanelle of Stephen’s genitals, letting his fingers wander even further back.

Stephen felt almost paralyzed, delirious, unable keep track of what he felt. Usually relieving himself was a fairly straightforward procedure, focusing down into a single point and grinding it until he exploded. This was...helplessness, swept away in a flood formed from rivulets of fire and ice from his neck and ears and waist and crotch, filling him like his body was a sinking boat, and him clinging to his erection like an oar and paddling for dear life. Loki’s fingers never penetrated but rubbed firmly, surely, like they knew exactly what the good doctor needed.

He could barely move his lips, “Don’t…”

Loki slowed immediately, but Stephen shook his head frantically, “Don’t stop…”

Loki growled in his throat and leaned over half on top of him, pressing the front of his thigh to the back of his rubbing hand, giving Stephen something secure to buck against, swirling the pads of his fingers and thumb against the magical spots that shot sparks up his spine and an ache of heat down his length.

Stephen thrust himself through his stationary hand, against Loki’s pressing fingers, feeling like he was fucking the open air, copulating with the entire universe. Loki knelt up over him, holding him secure, looking down in awe, his free hand under his forest-green robes, fluttering frantically. The sight, even just in dim silhouette, was too much. Stephen erupted with the startling suddenness of a lightning strike, Loki groaning after him a moment later.

Loki leaned down and kissed him, smiling like a shark and giggling like a loon, “Just how many suits of clothes are you going to soil today, Strange?”

Stephen sighed, shrugging and wiping his hand on the flank of Loki’s trousers, “How many you got?”


	5. Ripples from a Pebble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because Asgardians seriously have the worst hair.

With Loki spent and naked it only made sense to get him into the tub. He bleated a bit when Stephen ducked him, cursing and spluttering about how he didn’t have any of his hair oils handy and that things were likely to get out of control. Stephen scoffed, rubbing in shampoo and ducking him again, “You really need to try a style that doesn’t involve enough grease to lard a roasted rhino.”

Loki whined, mocking himself, “But it’s how the cool kids wear it at school!”

Stephen leaned over, sucking the spot behind Loki's ear he thought of as his own, rubbing a second palmful of shampoo in before summoning warm water to his fingertips and gradually massaging it out. Loki relaxed into the scalp massage so completely he almost went under a third time on his own, sinking down until his chin was resting on its reflection. When Stephen summoned his own conditioner to his hand and began working it in down the length of each lock, Loki became pensive.

"I heard a rumor...that she died at your hospital."

Stephen frowned, "The Ancient One?"

"Yes."

It hadn't really been his hospital at the time. Technically she'd been... "Yes."

Loki picked at his fingernails under the water, "You were there."

Stephen nodded, not wanting to draw out the interrogation, "At the fight where she was hurt, in the room where my colleagues tried to save her, and by her side when she realized it was time to let go."

"After she intervened in your mistake."

"Fighting a larger threat she blamed herself for creating. But yes."

Loki rubbed his jaw, "Was it peaceful?"

Stephen nodded, "At the very end, yes. She went reluctantly but...she didn't choose to suffer."

Loki, looked down, smiling at the faint outline of his own face, "About time."

Stephen didn't ask, rubbing Loki's neck.

Loki sighed, bowing his neck under the intense weight of pampering, his forehead and the tip of his nose meeting their reflection, "You shouldn't blame yourself. Except those times when it's useful to."

Stephen scoffed, "I know. I was a surgeon. The only thing I was better at than brain surgery was selective culpability," he summoned water to his fingertips as Loki voluntarily sank himself under the sandalwood-scented surface.

When their bodies and clothes had all been suitably cleaned and dried, Loki dressed and stood admiring himself in the mirror, making his reflection turn itself so he could take in every angle with unvarnished vanity. What had once resembled a greasy mullet was actually a glossy ebony cascade, fanning back from his high brow and down over his shoulders in soft waves that could only be described as princely.

“Gods be damned, I’m pretty,” he boasted through his dazzling smile, preening his raven locks like a tropical bird.

Stephen smiled but averted his eyes. His brain had stopped spinning but his inclination to drag Loki back to bed and keep him there until he absolutely had to leave was still plucking at him, and it was disconcerting. He crossed quietly to the chamber door, “You are. But I’m starving. I’ll go get us some break-”

“Wait Stephen don’t!”

His fingers were already turning the lock, the wood almost bowing inward with the pressure behind it. The latch clicked and the door blew open so hard that Stephen was flung across the room, landing on his back and feeling all the air evaporate out of him, his phrenic nerves too stunned to operate his diaphragm.

Tex stood in the door in a towering rage, both guns drawn down at his sides, “Stephen Vincent Strange, whose Name is Doctor Strange, you’ve broken your word to me, you false selfish stupid sonofabitch.”

Stephen climbed onto his shaking legs, carefully collecting enough breath to talk, “Wh-what? I-I-I- Tex I would never-”

Tex advanced into the room, bringing his drawn weapons across the wards like they were nothing, muttering, “Paleface yankee whoreson…” then wandering off into words in the same family but a different tongue.

Loki took a step forward, his voice rolling with silvered tones, “Mister...Tex? I’m sure we can work something out. Allow me to introduce myself, my name is…”

Tex rolled his eyes, “I know who you are, trickster, and I neither got nor want no quarrel with you. But with all due respect, what the fuck did you do to him?”

Loki’s expression tightened, struggling against puns and deeply inappropriate amusement, “Um...well…sorry are you his boyfriend? I didn’t realize.”

Stephen put up a hand, “Tex, I don’t understand. I thought we agreed, Tuesday-”

Tex roared, pointing both guns at Strange, “It’s Wednesday you fucking asshole!”

Stephen put up his other hand, swallowing, looking from Loki to Tex and back again, “How…”

Loki looked flabbergasted, then sheepish, “I...I...I didn’t know you had an appointment. It was just a little time charm. You’d left a space for one and I figured...I didn’t know you had an appointment.”

Tex closed his eyes and shook his head, “You stupid shit.”

Stephen stepped between Loki and Tex instinctively, “Easy, Tex, listen, we can…” he knew it was a lie even as he said it, “...we can work something around this, you don’t have to…”

“Bullshit, Strange,” both barrels exploded, their charges hitting Doctor Strange squarely between the eyes and in the chest.

The sorcerer supreme staggered backward into Loki, who lowered him to the ground speechless before charging Tex, his fists colliding explosively with shrieking shields of magenta light until the pain of it forced the trickster to his knees.

Tex swallowed, tears in his eyes, “I didn’t wanna do that. You know I didn’t wanna do that. He broke his word and I had to punish that or mine would be forfeit. Good thing you’re here...he don’t have to stay dead, if you’re willing to call him back. His astral form’s probably nearby. Just give him a minute so the oath has a chance to feel satisfied he’s died for what he did...”

Loki nodded, still seething, “Trust me I know how it works. And I trust you know what it feels like, regardless.”

Tex holstered one gun and reached into a pouch at his belt, “I got no quarrel with you, trickster. I ask you humbly to close your eyes on me and not open them on my shape in anger again,” he held out a flat grey pebble with a spiral wheel painted on it, tiny symbols in a number of traditions painted at the end of each spoke, one of them a very old anglo saxon rune.

Loki squeezed the stone in his hand, grimacing, intoning, “The price is paid. Go from my sight.”

Tex holstered his other gun, tipped his hat and walked away.

Loki got up slowly, sighing, and walked back to stand in Stephen’s empty skyward gaze. He knelt down and pressed his lips to his chest, then to his forehead, sitting back and spitting two pearlescent slugs of enchanted lead into his palm.

Nothing happened.

Loki squinted down at him, “You do _want_ to live, don’t you?” and cracked him hard in the center of his sternum with a closed fist.

Stephen balled up like a pill bug and rolled onto his side, gasping, glaring.

Loki shrugged, “I swear I didn’t know.”

“You sped up time in my house without telling me.”

Loki spoke quietly and mechanically, accustomed to the losing argument, “You were unconscious. I was bored. Anyway I un-murdered you, that’s got to be worth some measure of forgiveness.”

Stephen sighed and held out a hand, clutching his chest with the other as Loki helped pull him up to sitting. He looked at Loki pointedly, “You’ve done this before.”

Loki smirked, “This exactly? No, I’d say on the whole today has been fairly novel, even for me.”

“I mean...dying. To satisfy an oath when you’ve had to break your word. Tricking the laws of magic because…” something slipped away, leaving only a faint outline of itself in his mind, “...you’ve made promises you can’t ever tell your brother about.”

Loki nodded, helpless and grateful, “And if you ever remember what they are, you can’t tell him either. Or I’ll have to put these back where I found them,” he hefted the bullets and tucked them into a concealed pocket at his left coat breast, “You’d better catch up with your friend, see if he’s still willing to accept your help.”

Stephen sighed, “I won’t be back until after it’s time for Wong to let you out. I’d meant to come back to check on you in the evenings, but Tex probably won’t let me out of his sight until he’s paid in full...and in triplicate.”

Loki’s face fell, “This was fun. I promise I’ll behave. Sleep, eat, read my books. I won’t give Wong any trouble,” he picked Stephen’s hand off the floor, extending his fingers gently and placing one princely kiss on the first knuckle of his strangely unscarred index finger, “Let me know if you ever figure this out. I'll be in touch.”

“I’ll see you around, I’m sure."

 


	6. A Wheel Within a Wheel

“Well, here we are,” Tex gestured grandly at the site that was still just a stadium-sized hole in the ground and several large stacks of massive stellae stones, “Since we’re friends I’ll let you start wherever you want.”

Stephen nodded, looking around the site, “Right, just let me get my bearings,” old memories that weren’t his own began sliding into place over the landscape, old buildings long lost to time. Stephen picked up some flags and began walking the perimeter of the hole, marking key structural and ley points, “Are you sure you need all three weeks? I mean, technically I did eight hours of work for you yesterday, unconsciously processing these memories. That’s way more valuable than just my helping to levitate parts in this area’s magical undertow.”

“Fuck your technicalities, Doc. Your ass is mine until I say otherwise. Dinner’s at six. You can take a break then,” Tex sounded stern but he was grinning, “If you get tired of sweating through that pretentious tibetan toga there’s some linen kit in the bunkhouse that should fit you. I gotta go make sure everything’s wrapped up but I’ll be back in an hour to introduce you to everyone.”

Tex stepped through a free-standing doorway and disappeared.

He found Loki mostly where he’d left him, except sitting at the table savaging a truly massive stack of french toast.

Tex shook his head, “He is so bad at this.”

Loki nodded, adding more syrup, “He’ll get better, learn to lie and wheedle and politic like the rest of you.”

Tex nodded, “That’s why I got to get everything I can out of him before he does. Sorcerers Supreme have this nasty habit of getting caught up in saving the world and forgetting to care about the actual wellbeing of those of us living in it.”

Loki shook his head indifferently, “He’ll keep caring. Even if it kills him. I mean,” he smiled a little, “did you see how he stepped between us? I don’t even know if he thought he was protecting you from me or me from you but it was just...” he sighed.

Tex smiled, “Yeah, I think he’ll be alright. I’m just not taking any chances, is all.”

Loki nodded, “Fair enough.”

“Is it? You’re alright with me walking out on you here, right? You’re not gonna come after me for leaving you trapped?”

Loki shook his head, swallowing another massive mouthful of fried bread and maple syrup, “No, your coin is good. I can’t seek vengeance upon you for abandoning me to a month of being waited on hand and foot by sorcerers and reading the New York sanctum’s entire library instead of getting punched by supermax prison guards on some overplanned idiot errand that my brother could handle with one hand behind his back. There's a reason I carefully planted the idea of locking me up in his head, and I'll enjoy guilting him for going through with it. I'll admit I wasn't expecting anything quite so...secure. I was just looking for an excuse to stay home and pretend to be trapped, Strange's showy thoroughness seemed...arrogant. Like he really thought he could come out ahead by angering me."

Tex shook his head, "Nah, that was all bluff. He half-killed himself preparing for you."

Loki shrugged, "Still. I hate being handled. But he held up under retaliation well instead of hiding like a righteous hypocrite, gave me ample chance to have a look at the upstart sorcerer. I even got his bond on a matter I'd been...concerned about, since his predecessor's passing.”

Tex nodded, "Hmm, I was wondering why you brought him back. I thought for a minute there you weren't going to bother, let him die just to be cussed. But if you got him under a bond there's nothing to assure you could trick the next Sorcerer Supreme as thoroughly. Am I right?"

Loki nodded, not looking up, "Yes, of course. And, admittedly, I assumed you were pulling something as well. Shooting him in his own sanctum with only a trickster's benevolence as your backup plan before he'd paid you? There had to be another way you expected him to survive, and if I didn't help and he survived anyway my oath under hospitality would be broken and I'd have a Sorcerer Supreme walking around knowing my secrets and under no bond to keep them. As things currently stand, I'm best off making sure he lives a long long time."

Tex scoffed, "You accidentally made him break his word in a single day. The Powers save him from your good intentions."

Loki narrowed his eyes to the thickness of daggers, "Yes, how strange that he left that gap for a time charm when he had such a heavy burden of scheduling to honor. I wonder who suggested that be done exactly as it was, in a configuration that could be foiled only while he was in the ward's bounds. What possible reason would he have had for doing that." 

"I got no answer for you. But...you oughta let him alone. He's casting around for allies and it's best if he lands among his own."

Loki lowered his fork, "His own?"

Tex nodded, "Sorcerers. We're a prickly bunch but at the end of the day we're going to be the ones whose dignity rests on whether he succeeds. Gods and heroes can never offer him that. Stick to tormenting your own family. Leave him to us."

Loki squinted, "I'm a sorcerer. I could enter the Supremacy any time I wanted."  
  
"But you won't."

"But I could."

"But you won't, or you would have long ago. You barely know two sheltered languages."

Loki scowled, "Back when I started there only  _were_ two. Before there were more I got bored with doing everything the hard way. And as long as your little club goes out of their way to treat him like a black sheep despite the powers that bind your interests together, he's closer kin to me than he is to you. Remember that," he sneered, "you trigger-happy cowboy-cosplay hypocrite."

Tex regarded him coldly, "I picked this getup because I loved racist-ass cowboy movies before I was old enough to know what I was and what I was lookin' at, because I live to serve indigenous peoples but I'm an American, born and raised, and a sorcerer in a global tradition that doesn't respect tribe or history, just power."

"Don't want anyone mistaking you for a native from the rez?"

"No, dumbshit," Tex sighed heavily, "I just don't want to fool the people I serve into thinking that they should ever trust me to know what's best for them. I wear the uniform of an invader because that's what I am, and I don't ever want to let myself forget it either. I can't serve them if I'm not honest about all the ways I might harm them without meaning to while trying to keep the wolves from their door. So which one of us is the hypocrite?"

Loki scowled at him, "You should go."

Tex nodded, “Alright, trickster. I broke with you in peace," he smirked, "No take-backsies.”

Loki laughed. “I would never. Tacky.”

Tex grimaced, “Yeah, I’ve heard that before. Enjoy your rest.”

Loki nodded, digging back into his food, "If I change my mind and decide to beg for mercy, you'll be the first to know. I'd need to borrow him back to make the time pass here any faster," and Tex pretended not to see him wistfully running his fingers through his Strange-scented hair. When Tex had left, Loki put down his fork and considered his hand pensively, dropping the illusion that concealed the thick surgical scars covering the second digit from tip to wrist, studying the orphaned, adopted digit as it shook. He bent it gently, its fellow fingers bending around in kind to steady it, shelter it, as a sensation whispered across its tip from far away, letting him know that somewhere the Sorcerer Supreme was stroking his lips pensively. 

Tex stopped long enough to have some excellent coffee with Wong, and appeared back at the Zacatecas site, finding the foundation for the cellar laid and shored in perfect ley alignment, Stephen drenched in sweat and drinking from a dipper, “Unbelievable,” he shook his head, “slacking off already.”

He poured the rest of the dipper over his head, “Did you stick the dismount?”

Tex nodded, “He’s officially gotten the better of you by letting you trap him. He’ll be on to different projects by the time you get back.”

Stephen nodded, trying not to admit regret, “Good. Thanks, Tex.”

“You’re sure the memories are good? You can see the old temple?”

Stephen looked around the site. The sanctum was optimally oriented for mystical potency based on wisdom lost to all but the oldest earth-walking demigods. But he felt himself staring in space, thinking that, in the sweltering heat, he could smell hearthfire and impending snow.

He stroked his goatee thoughtfully, running his smooth index finger across his lip, “Yeah. The memories are good.”


End file.
